


The Weight of Living

by cancerously



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, and kind of succeeding, mostly its just alphys trying super duper fuckin hard, theres some explosions but nothing serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10134290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancerously/pseuds/cancerously
Summary: Alphys gets accepted to a prestigious Ph.D lab program, only to destroy something right off the bat. Apparently, the current Royal Scientist enjoys that.A pre-canon fic about how Alphys met Gaster.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I had an idea months ago about writing a Gaster-based fic strictly from Alphys' perspective, but I'm terrible at long-form fic so here's the chapter I wanted to write, wherein Alphys actually meets Gaster and Sans for the first time. I might cave and do a series of one-shots of other parts later, but, haha, who knows!!!!
> 
> anyway here's this for now enjoy yo. Shoutout to TalkingSoup for letting me steal her character Dr. Betas because I want him to be happy and love his daughter and I won't accept no for an answer

If Alphys knew anything, it’s that she’s not much of a certainty person. She tended to look at multiple sides to a situation, knowing that if something was going right, there was always the chance it was going to go wrong. On the other hand, she was also getting better at thinking that if something was going wrong, it would inevitably turn around.

However, in this exact moment, she was absolutely sure she would be fired, if not god damn killed.

She was standing in the middle of what, fifteen minutes ago, was a high-tech engineering laboratory, clutching an empty fire extinguisher to her body as if it were a lifeline, looking among the wreckage. The desk she was previously working at was almost entirely gone, the machine that used to inhabit it having entirely disintegrated and melted through the furniture and floor. Scorch marks adorned the walls, up to 20 feet away in each direction, and as Alphys looked up, she horrifyingly realized their presence on the ceiling as well. Other monsters were slowly climbing out from underneath their workspaces, surveying the damage, from the streaks of bubbling metal cut across certain aisles of floor and the smoke still wafting in the air.

Of course, the first real thing she heard was the sound of the phone at the edge of the room being docked, and her surveyor mention, “The Royal Scientist wants to see you.”

Alphys scurried out of the room, hands gripped together hard as she slunk down the hall, trying to keep her head low. First day on—well, it wasn’t even a job, was it? The first day of her contracted lab work for her Ph.D, and she already managed to decimate her work so incredibly she had to go to a one-on-one with the Royal Scientist. The Royal Scientist who rarely anyone saw, who was consistently responsible for some of the best work in the Underground, and whose office was jokingly referred to as ‘the point of no return’. Haha! That one! Lord, it would be more merciful to just dust her now.

As she approached, Alphys stopped, trying to contemplate something that could even resemble a defense. _I was really just trying to improve the energy flow, some circuitry just got crossed—_ No, no, he’d think she was an idiot. _I thought I could improve the connection so I wanted to try something and—_ No, damnit, then he’d think she can’t take direction. _I really desperately just didn’t want to fuck this up but really I guess we’re already there so just shoot me quietly, maybe?_ Yeah. Haha. Okay. That’d go over great.

Alphys smacked her head forward and, realizing it came into contact with the office door and therefore made a sound, she was now obligated to knock politely and try and face what was coming to her. After a tense few moments of no response, she tried again. After perhaps ten more seconds, she was starting to get nervous she had picked the wrong door, until, instead of hearing a response, the door opened.

The man who opened it was a skeleton monster, easily a foot taller than her or more. He was wearing a sweeping black coat, badges prominently displayed on his breast, and a pair of glasses loomed down at her through hollow eyes. Surprisingly, when she expected him to chastise her directly from the start, he simply nodded, spoke, and turned away. Except she had, in all honesty, no idea what he actually said.

“Uhm... e-excuse me, what did you...?” She stood in the doorway, chest slumped over uncertainly, seeming as if she was trying to decide whether or not to melt into the goddamn floor. At the moment Alphys spoke, the other man turned around, and, if seeming to realize his mistake, shook his head a bit and brought his hands up to his chest, beginning to sign out words.

“My apologies. Come in. I forget that not everyone understands my speech.”

Alphys nodded, quickly, scurrying in and quietly shutting the door behind her before taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Everything in the office was immaculate- certifications hung neatly, filing cabinets in order, pens in proper places.  
Oh, angel, she was so fired.

“Now,” he began, when he was sure she was looking at him, “My name is Dr. W. D. Gaster. I understand you were one of the students accepted into our Ph.D program, miss...?”

“Alphys.” She stuttered out, pressing her hands together before she realized she wasn’t sure if it was rude that she was still speaking. “Do you want me to, uh, u-use signing, I mean, I know it fine, I’m just not sure if, uhm, it’s rude to--”

“There’s no need for that.” He cut her off with a swift dismissal, hand crossing over his chest, and she shrunk back, hoping she hadn’t offended him. “This is for your convenience, not mine. Now. I understand you made quite a mess out of the engineering test lab. Do you have anything to say about that?”

Alphys wrung her hands, wanting to look away but knowing she’d miss him if she did, so she forced herself into eye contact. “Well, I... y-yes, uhm. Yes, that. Happened.” She bit her lip, overbite making it too visible, but better than a perpetual nervous smile.

His expressions shifted, a small lift above his eye sockets as if he were raising his eyebrows. “Something indeed happened. Care to elaborate?”

She moved her hand up to bite at her nails, caught herself halfway through, and smacked it down. “Well, uhm... w-we were being introduced to some of the mechanics, of, uh, the things we would be assisting with, during our program, and, uhm, our s-supervisor wanted to see if one of us could, uh, identify what was wrong with this chassis, and, uh, s-she called on me, because, I think she might’ve seen my transcripts and knew my dad used to work here, and—"

She saw him begin to sign, and stopped. “You’re not Betas’ daughter, are you?”

Alphys honestly felt like she was about to disintegrate on the spot. Way to besmirch her father’s glimmering reputation on her first day, too. “... Yes?”

“Hm. I knew him, for the time he worked here. A shame when I heard of his passing. A fantastic engineer. He worked on many of my own personal projects.” He seemed almost impressed- she could swear, for a moment, that his mouth had pulled into a smile. “I suppose this explains why you would follow this line of study.”

“Heh. Yeah, that’s, uhm. That was my dad.” She paused, as if wondering if he had something to add, but when he didn’t, she continued. “So, uhm, I went up, and, I f-figured out the lines of the wires weren’t, uhm, set properly? So I thought, or well, I said, I knew it w-was in the wiring, and I thought I could fix it, so I, uhm... adjusted the wiring. And. That’s a-around the time it detonated.” Alphys sat, completely silent, hands pressed together so tightly she thought they might leave marks, and when he didn’t respond, her internal filter broke. “I just, thought, they might’ve w-wanted me to fix it, and I saw, the wiring wasn’t set in completely right and I thought, t-there’s a much better way to go about routing the magical generator system if you just, uh, adjusted it simply it would create a thirty three percent higher energy output, b-but I didn’t think it would create a feedback loop, uhm, I guess it didn’t ventilate like I thought it’s s-systems were set for and nobody got hurt! I think. I m-mean, the lab is hurt, but, the fire’s gone, and I...”

She paused, unsure of how to defend herself further, and came up short, sinking her shoulders and finally looking away, unhelpfully. “I just... t-thought I could make it better. I’m sorry. I won’t, uhm, c-come back, and break more of your things. Just, just please let me leave.”

It took until he began tapping on the desk to regain her attention to notice that, despite having created what was inevitably a massive catastrophe, Gaster did not seem the least bit angry with her. In fact, he was nearly smiling as he began to sign. “First off, I am not angry with you, miss Alphys. Second, you won’t be leaving, because I am transferring you.”

It took her a second to process what she just heard—well, read—but when Alphys did, she sputtered. “T-transferred—”

“To work in my department. I could use a mind like yours down here.” She swore he looked like he was about to wink, but his expression kept neutral. “If you are anything like your father, you will prove to be an invaluable asset.”

“Wait, s-sir—” Alphys began to speak, beyond confused. “I—y-you don’t have to be nice to me, or, because you knew my dad, uhm, father, or something, if I didn’t p-perform well, I can go, it’s, it’s alright—”

“No.” His answer was so direct it gave her pause, and he was already standing, as if to tell her the conversation was done. “I suppose I cannot stop you from leaving, should you decide the challenge is not up to your specifications. But I think you will have much more use to me here.” With that, he moved, a sweeping gesture that made her think less of a Royal Scientist, and more of a king. “Please, see my assistant’s office at the end of the hall for further instruction. He will...” He paused, as if tripping over his own words for the first time. "... Have an idea of the steps you will need to take. I expect to see you again soon, miss Alphys.”

\---

If you asked Alphys what happened next, she probably couldn’t tell you. One minute, she was sitting in her supervisor’s office, the one that most people were convinced she would never come out of, and the next, she was standing in the hall, utterly flabbergasted. He... didn’t kill her. In fact, she's not certain why she would believe he would ever do that, or why that ever crossed her mind. But he didn’t even fire her. She may have even gotten what qualified as a promotion. She walked down the hall in a daze, completely missing the side office he asked her to stop in, and having to backtrack, completely forgetting to knock as she opened the door cautiously.

Inside was another skeleton monster, albiet much smaller, who was sitting in his chair, feet on the desk, hands behind his head... asleep. The room itself was incredibly different from the previous office- papers were strewn about, curvy markings on most of them that snaked between margins and crossed up and through words, halfhazardly brandished between notes. A half-drunk pot of coffee rested in the corner amongst a variety of mugs, none of which seemed to be clean, and upon a second survey, she determined the man behind the desk was wearing slippers.

As she wondered to herself if she had dropped into some form of liminal space, and possibly crossed directly into another dimension mid-hallway, the skeleton stirred, creaking open an eyesocket to look at her, and she let out a small peep as his mouth drew into a smile. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Uhm.” Alphys honestly had no words for this. She did not even begin to have words for this. “I, was, uh... t-the royal scientist told me to, uhm, c-come here, for, uh... paperwork? Something? I think?”

“Oh, the doc?” The monster shifted his feet down, stretching out a shoulder before rummaging around on the desk. “Yeah, yeah, he said he left somethin’... papers for what, anyway?” His voice was easier for her to listen to, all curved corners and words stretching into one another. It was as if even his speech lagged in fatigue. “Wait, got ‘em. Transfers?” His focus went from the desk to her with simply a twitch of his skull. “You gonna be down here?”

“Uh, I... t-think that’s what he said.” Alphys pulled in her shoulders, tail beginning to creep around her ankles in an attempt to make herself even smaller than she already was. “I don’t, uh, want to be in the way, or a-anything, I’m just... doing what he said! So. Yeah.”

To her continued surprise, the other skeleton laughed, standing and walking around his desk so she could see him fully. He wore the same coat she did, but his demeanor was relaxed, and she could see he didn’t stand much taller than her, if at all. “You must’ve done something really crazy. What was it? Make a robot entirely dedicated to bad jokes? Start a fire?”

“M-Multiple fires, kind of—“

“Oh, you’re the reason they’re putting the engineering test space back together, right?” She cringed with the words, but all he did was smile. “Man, that’d do it. He’s such a sucker for collateral damage.”

“I’m sorry, what?” She cut in, maybe too sharp, maybe too quickly, but she honestly felt at her wit’s end for the day, maybe even her life. “He can’t have just, just m-moved me because he liked that I ruined all his stuff! He’s not—he’s not like that. He’s not supposed to be like t-that. He’s smart, and wise, and wouldn’t just think he knew better when—“

“Nah.” He dismissed her so easily, and she felt her words fall apart to her feet. “He likes it when somebody has good ideas. You must’ve had a real kicker.”

“No, I don’t think I d-did.” Her words got less sure the more the sentence went on. “I just… wanted to help.”

“Well, that’s as good a reason as any.” The monster held out in his bony hands a small, stapled stack of papers, with a series of messily-scribbled symbols on top. “You had an idea, and tried to do something good. That’s more than he gets from most people.” Alphys took it, cautiously, as if somehow it would disappear and she’d wake up in her bed before this day ever happened, but he kept speaking. “‘Ss how I got here.”

Finally, possibly blissfully, she let out a choked laugh. “What—what did you d-do--”

“Eeh, I dunno. He wouldn’t tell me outright. I suspect it’s just all my charm.” He shrugged, and Alphys couldn’t help but giggle a little more. “The name’s Sans, by the way. You’re...” He leaned over a bit, looking at the papers in her hand. “Alphys?”

“You... c-can read this?” She pointed to the line of symbols across the top of the paper.

“Yeah, for the most part. You’ll pick up on it.” He moved back around the desk, kicking his feet back up. “Now, I dunno about you, but it is my officially sanctioned naptime, so I’m gonna get back to it.”

Once more, Alphys felt her face pulling sideways into what felt more like hope than happiness. “Well, I wouldn’t w-want to interrupt the great, uhm, official Nappening.” She pulled herself into a fake bow as she shuffled towards the door. “I shall take m-my leave, your honor.”

He grinned at her, unbreakingly, as she exited. “‘Course not. See you soon.”

\---

It didn’t hit her fully until that night. None of it sunk in until she was home, staring at the papers before her, asking for her transcripts and references from her official application, that she realized how absolutely ridiculous this was.

Looking back to the top of the page, she found where Sans had looked to find her name. Six symbols. She wrote out standard lettering below them, tilting her head a bit, trying to think of how that might sound, trying to remember the deep tone he spoke before he switched.

If he wanted her expertise... well, he seemed to be able to read her well enough to make a judgement. Maybe her next step was getting there for him, too.


End file.
